The present invention relates to devices for cleaning abrasive sanding apparatus and particularly to such devices for routinely cleaning sanding belts during day-to-day operation.
In commercial sanding operations, large wide belt sanders are used to achieve a desired finish on the wood or particle board. The wide belt sanders come in many shapes and sizes from relatively simple machines with a single contact roller carrying a circumferential sanding belt to large, complex multi-roller machines for carrying continuous belts of great length. During the sanding operation, the surface of the abrasive belt fills, or loads, with materials abraded from the subject wood, and the surface of the belt becomes glazed. Eventually, the glaze significantly inhibits the sanding operation since it presents a smooth surface unsuitable for sanding. Industry practice was at one time simply to dispose of the clogged sanding belts once they became glazed. This practice was wasteful and expensive. This was true both in terms of the cost of the belts and in machine down time during changing of the belts. In certain operations, an entire plant comes to a halt when the sanding belt of a single sanding machine must be changed.
One solution to the disposal problem has been to take the belts from the machine and to place them on a roller assembly for scrubbing with a solvent to unload them. Subsequently, the belts are hung to dry for about a day. This adequately solves the problem of waste in the disposal of the belts. However, this does not solve the problem with machine down time during changing of the belt, since the belt still must frequently be changed.
It has been found that natural or synthetic rubber, such as natural honey crepe rubber, can be used to remove the excess material from the interstitial areas of the belt between the abrasive materials. It has been theorized that the abrasive action does not rub the excess material off, but rather, picks it out in small balls of material. The balls are formed when heat is generated by friction of the rubber against the belt and the material melts and grabs the pitch. However, previous apparatus and methods for using crepe rubber in this cleaning endeavor have proven to be unsatisfactory. In a commercial sanding operation, it is not feasible to use a hand-held device. Nor is it advisable to utilize apparatus that require adjustment of the working surface of the wide belt sander in order to accommodate a cleaning block.